Recommended Reads

Heir to a fortune, Marguerite is destined for a life of prosperity and gentility. Then she is orphaned, and her guardian spends her inheritance and insists she accompany him on an expedition to New France. That journey takes a unexpected turn when Marguerite, accused of betrayal, is brutally punished and abandoned on a small island. Inspired by the real life of a sixteenth-century heroine, Isola is the timeless story of a woman fighting for survival.

Revised to reflect the latest in survival knowledge and technology, and covering new topics such as urban survival and terrorism, the SAS Survival Handbook is the ultimate guide to survival anywhere. From basic campcraft and navigation to fear management and strategies for coping with any type of disaster, this complete course is the definitive resource for all campers, hikers, and outdoor adventurers. 

Dylan’s geologist friend Clay has discovered an untouched cliff face in the Kentucky wilderness. Dylan is going to be the first person to climb it, cementing her place as the next rising star in rock climbing. She sets off along with Clay, his assistant Sylvia, and Dylan's boyfriend Luke. When three bodies are discovered seven months later in various states of decay, Dylan is still missing. No trace of her, dead or alive, has been found.

In The Unthinkable, prize-winning journalist Amanda Ripley, who has covered some of the most devastating disasters of our age, sets out to discover why some people perish while others survive. To understand the human reaction to chaos and imminent danger, she turns to leading brain scientists, trauma psychologists, and other disaster experts. Along the way, we get firsthand accounts and knowledge about the invisible factors that can make the difference between death and survival.

In this novel based on a true story, the year is 1823. Trapper Hugh Glass is among the Rocky Mountain Fur Company’s finest trackers and most experienced frontiersmen. When a scouting mission leaves him viciously mauled by a grizzly bear, two company men are dispatched to stay behind and tend to Glass. Instead, they abandon him. Glass is driven to survive by one desire: revenge. 

When writer and navigator Tristan Gooley journeys outside, he sees a natural world filled with clues. To help you understand nature as he does, Gooley shares more than 850 tips for forecasting, tracking, and more. This is the ultimate resource on what the land, sun, moon, stars, plants, animals, and clouds can reveal if you only know how to look.

A servant girl escapes from a colonial settlement in the wilderness. She carries nothing with her but her wits, a few possessions, and the spark of god that burns hot within her. What she finds in this terra incognita is beyond the limits of her imagination and will bend her belief in everything that her own civilization has taught her.

When best friends Wynn and Jack decide to canoe the Maskwa River in northern Canada, they anticipate long days of leisurely paddling. One night, they hear a man and woman arguing on the fog-shrouded riverbank; the next day, a man appears on the river, paddling alone. Is this the same man they heard? And if he is, where is the woman? 

The Worst Journey in the World recounts Robert Falcon Scott’s ill-fated expedition to the South Pole. Apsley Cherry-Garrard—the youngest member of Scott’s team and one of three men to make and survive the notorious Winter Journey—draws on his firsthand experiences as well as the diaries of his compatriots to create a stirring and detailed account of Scott’s legendary expedition. 

Mara was surprised when reality TV producers showed up at her survival school to tell her she had been cast in their new show, 'Civilization.' Whisked away by helicopter to an undisclosed location, Mara meets her teammates. When the cast wakes one morning to find something has gone horribly wrong, fear ripples through the group. Soon Mara and the others face terrifying decisions as "survival" becomes more than a game.

In June 1992, best friends Jim Davidson and Mike Price stood triumphantly atop Washington's Mount Rainier, celebrating their first mountaineering milestone. On the way down, a cave-in plunged them deep inside a pitch-black, ice-walled glacial crevasse. Trapped on a narrow, unstable frozen ledge, deep below daylight and high above a yawning chasm, Davidson would desperately battle crumbling ice and snow that threatened to bury him alive, while struggling in vain to save his fatally injured companion.

Once every year, Scoutmaster Tim Riggs leads a troop of boys into the Canadian wilderness for a weekend camping trip. This time an unexpected intruder stumbles upon their campsite who is shockingly thin, disturbingly pale, and voraciously hungry. Before they know it, Tim and the boys are thrust into a harrowing struggle for survival with no escape from the elements, the infected, or one another.

In Extremes, renowned geographer and travel writer Nick Middleton puts his body and mind to the test in an attempt to find out how people endure the world's most remote and inhospitable landscapes. His mission is to learn how to cope with four horrendous habitats: arctic wasteland, jungle, desert, and swamp. Nick explains the geographical conditions that conspire to produce the world’s harshest ecologies -- as well as the various human quirks that people have evolved to make life at the edge bearable.
 

In the heart of the Maine woods, an experienced Appalachian Trail hiker, Valerie Gillis goes missing 200 miles from her final destination. Alone in the wilderness, Valerie battles the elements and struggles to keep hoping. At the heart of the investigation is Beverly, the determined Maine State Game Warden tasked with finding Valerie. Roving between these compelling narratives, a puzzle emerges as Valerie’s disappearance may not be accidental.

How to Forage for Wild Foods without Dying is a book for anyone who likes to go on nature walks and would like to learn about the edible plants they're most likely to come across no matter what region they're in. With Zachos's expert advice and easy-to-follow guidelines, readers will be confident in identifying which plants they can safely eat and which ones they should definitely avoid.